(Jewish Group) David Baddiel: 'People think Jews are powerful. I think the opposite'
If David Baddiel hadn’t been satisfied with a 30-year run as one of the country’s leading comedians, he would have made an excellent professional interrogator.
We’re all familiar with the boyish, wide-eyed curiosity that comes through in Baddiel’s stand-up. His early TV comedy was built on double acts: constructively awkward with Rob Newman, his first BBC partner in sketch shows like The Mary Whitehouse Experience; warm and affectionate with Frank Skinner, with whom a weekly chat about football became the comedy juggernaut Football Fantasy League.
In his solo stand-up, however, Baddiel is still the amiable loner. I caught Trolls: Not the Dolls in March 2019, days before lockdown hit the tour. For a gig about social media conflict, it was disarmingly gentle, Baddiel a charming goofball simply trying to understand the madness. When he makes documentaries – previous subjects include the far right and his own father’s dementia – that charm is what makes even the hardest nuts open-up.
He is nothing if not prolific. Last month, he published his latest novel for children, Virtually Christmas. A new book on atheism is in the works. On Monday, Channel 4 will air Jews Don’t Count, a documentary based on his bestselling book about antisemitism and its prevalence even among progressives. Baddiel interviews a galaxy of celebrity names about their experience of antisemitism: among them David Schwimmer, Sarah Silverman, Neil Gaiman and, erm, me. He has the interviewer’s knack of easing his subjects into a lull of trust, then landing a surprise question at just the most fertile moment.
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